Dance with the one who done brung ya. | April 13, 2009

From the Huffington Post

Barack Obama was getting a lot of flak for using this saying around the Inauguration. People are so out of it. I mean, do they just live in a little laptop bubble? Do they ever get out there & talk to actual people?

I love the saying “Dance with the one who done brung ya.” It’s okay to use incorrect grammar with that because, well, it’s a saying. It means that you need to show respect & appreciation to the person who gave you your big break, or stood by you when things were rough, or was with you when you didn’t have a dime but helped you pay off your student loans, or, to use more sayings to explain this saying, if I scratch your back, you need to remember to scratch mine, or, quid pro quo.

Now, about brung. Some people still use that in the deep South when they mean brought. They’re not ignorant or making a mistake in their speech; it’s just like saying ain’t but in a different context. It’s almost a way to make their meaning more forceful. Like, if someone helped you, you better as heck help them when they need you. You don’t just take the better offer when it comes along later (like after your college loans are paid off or your out-of-wedlock child is an adult), like a richer guy, or a woman with bigger breasts. You get the idea. Dance with one who done brung ya. The one who stayed with you through thick & thin.

Also, I don’t know how this happened, but almost everyone who writes or reads from a script on television uses bring & take incorrectly. You take your clothes to the cleaners, you don’t bring them there. You take a date to the prom (not to just plain ol’ prom, to the prom), you don’t bring him. Just practice this one, okay? Do it just for me.

Also, here’s how you say someone had a rope wrapped around his neck & was hoisted up on a gallows, then the box was knocked out from under his feet, & he strangled on his own body weight. That’s called being hanged, not being hung. Your coat has been hung up, or you hung up the phone (although that one is quickly fading away because everyone is canceling their land lines because they don’t need them anymore due to widespread cellphone use).